The aim of this final report is to elaborate further on lessons learned from the Nordic 0–24 project. What are the contributions from the project on how to succeed in developing more effective and coherent services to vul-nerable children and young people? What are the lessons learned on how to succeed in enhanced collaboration and coordination? In the next chapter we describe the methods and theoretical approaches applied in the process evaluation. Chapter three concentrates on experiences re-lated to how to provide more effective follow-up, while chapter four goes further into how to succeed in promoting enhanced cross-sectoral col-laboration and coordination. Chapter five relates more to the organisa-tion of the Nordic 0–24 project as such and the link between this bottom-up project and dissemination of innovation and learning at a national and Nordic level. How can “best practice” be shared in order to improve co-ordination of service delivery directed at vulnerable children, young per-sons and their families in the Nordic countries? In chapter six we provide some closing remarks on lessons learned from the Nordic 0–24 project.
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2 Methods and theoretical approaches
The design of this process evaluation is a response to a tender in which the core issue was cross-sectoral efforts and collaboration on improved services to vulnerable children and young people.
The tender is based on an assumption that that improved cross-sec-toral collaboration will contribute to more coherent and effective follow-up of vulnerable children and young persons. The starting point for the Nordic 0–24 project was that better cross-sectoral collaboration at state, regional and municipal level is necessary to provide more coherent ser-vices of a higher quality. The tender stated that all countries would par-ticipate with a national case, where different models for cross-sectoral collaboration would be tried out. It was further stated that every case has relevance for the issue of vulnerable children and young people, and can be linked to the risk of dropout from the education system.
The aim of the process evaluation, as presented in the tender, was to study how the Nordic 0–24 collaboration and the work in the national cases contribute to improved coordination of services for the target group and different aspects that influence whether they succeed in providing enhanced cross-sectoral collaboration. The process evaluation was de-signed according to this aim. However, as the Nordic 0–24 collaboration evolved, it became clear that the project had turned out to be somewhat different from the description in the tender. The national cases were more heterogeneous than anticipated and most of them originated from ongoing initiatives. Many did not explicitly address cross-sectoral collab-oration, as indicated in the tender. It was therefore necessary to adjust the evaluation (design) accordingly.
In this chapter we present the design and methods used in this process evaluation. In the last section of the chapter we elaborate on the theo-retical framework of the analysis and reflections of this study.
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Methods and empirical data
The national cases and their local partners constitute the Nordic 0–24 collaboration. Each country and the autonomous islands has chosen a case that serve as a starting point for sharing of experiences and contri-butions to joint Nordic learning. During the project period, five joint meetings took place. The main source for empirical data in this evalua-tion came from the naevalua-tional cases and the sharing of experiences in the joint meetings. We will describe the empirical data of the process evalu-ation further, but first we describe the design of the evaluevalu-ation.
Process evaluation
This study is designed as a process evaluation (Sverdrup 2002). Process oriented evaluations are directed at gaining insight, understanding and learning from an ongoing project or initiative. A process evaluation im-plies that the researchers follow the initiative or project studies as it de-velops. As in our case, information gathered and analysis conducted at one stage in the evaluation process, is presented and discussed with in-volved actors during the project period.
It could be argued that in this design the evaluator is more an actor in an ongoing development process rather than an independent evaluator of the project. Research conducted at one stage is fed into later stages of both the Nordic project and the research process, and as such will influ-ence the further development of both the involved cases and the prob-lems discussed in the joint Nordic project. This possible trap of becoming more of a participant in the project than an independent researcher is avoided by the evaluation having a clear aim and design. The researchers have had the overall aim of the evaluation and research questions guiding their focus and the gathering of data. Theories and concepts used in the analysis are generated from other relevant studies related to the overall aim of discussing cross-sectoral collaboration and more effective follow-up of vulnerable children and young persons. The team of researchers consisted of three to four persons and represented two different research institutes, representing different perspectives and grounds for reflection related to the role of the researchers at the meetings, research questions to be addressed, and analysis to be conducted.
In the Nordic 0–24 project, representatives from the national cases (and involved local partners) meet twice a year to share experiences and discuss joint issues. As part of the process evaluation, these Nordic joint
meetings were used as an arena both for collecting information from the involved national cases, as well as for presenting findings and analysis so far in the project. We have also been engaged in defining some of the questions for group discussions at the meetings, and chaired some of the sessions. In this way, the researchers carrying out the process evaluation communicated and discussed research findings with the involved actors throughout the project period, and also set the agenda for what to discuss at some of the meeting’s sessions. We used the opportunity to raise the issue of cross-sectoral collaboration, with different approaches. This was due to our main objective: to study examples of cross-sectoral collabora-tion and factors that contribute to better cross-sectoral collaboracollabora-tion.
Being in dialog with the actors involved in the Nordic 0–24 collaboration has been important to generate improved understanding of the cases and contribute to knowledge sharing from the cases. In figure 2.1. we present the initial model for this process evaluation.
Figure 2.1. Model analysis, Nordic 0–24
Over time, this design opens for a possibility to analyse the experiences of the involved cases with the aim of identifying factors across different contexts that could contribute to better cross-sectoral collaboration as a means to provide better services to vulnerable children and young peo-ple.
An advantage of a process evaluation is that it opens for adjustment in
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a broader approach than initially planned. Early on it became clear that for most of the participants, reflections on what contributes to improved collaboration or factors that may hamper cross-sectoral (or interdiscipli-nary) collaboration was a new topic. Even though they had experiences from interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral collaboration from their work, reflecting on how to collaborate and how to succeed with collaboration was not something they had been engaged in as an issue in itself, except from the Norwegian case. For most of the participants their main atten-tion (naturally) was how to meet the needs of vulnerable children and young persons in a better and more effective way. The aim of their case or local project was related to a way of working, organising follow-up, or a specific method or approach.
It is important to note that except from the Norwegian case, none of the national cases or the local projects were initiated with the aim of im-proving collaboration per se, or that they included the aim of trialling a model for cross-sectoral collaboration (as stated in the tender). Rather, they were initiated to improve the follow-up of vulnerable children and young people. All of the cases do contain interdisciplinary collaboration, some of them cross-sectoral collaboration, but most of them have not had an ambition to evaluate models of cross-sectoral collaboration. How-ever, based on the tender we anticipated that the national cases would present an interest in, and reflection on, cross-sectoral collaboration.
Collaboration, interdisciplinary or cross-sectoral, was indeed a dimen-sion in most of these projects, but initially rarely an issue that was ex-plicitly addressed in itself.
The fact that the national cases did not explicitly focus on interdisci-plinary or cross sectorial collaboration motivated the research team to pay more attention to the experiences of the national cases and local partners’ work in a broader perspective. We looked for other joint fea-tures and assessed criteria for success in providing improved follow-up of vulnerable children and young persons. One dimension of this was to study how a user perspective is incorporated in the national cases (which was one of the research questions). This provided an opening to pay more attention to why cross-sectoral collaboration (or interdisciplinary collab-oration) is essential, and further, how to succeed in a more collaborative practice.
As the Nordic 0–24 collaboration has evolved, the discussions on cross-sectoral or interdisciplinary collaboration have become a topic. Ex-periences have been shared and made explicit. The evaluation team has
played an active role in raising collaboration as an issue, but applying a broader perspective in the evaluation and paying more attention to the question of how to improve services and follow-up of the target group has been an important element in succeeding in bringing these discus-sions and sharing of experiences forward.
At the first joint meeting of the Nordic 0–24 collaboration in Oslo (Oc-tober 2017) the project manager described the aim of the project as being to generate experiences and new learning about how to develop holistic, relevant and well-coordinated services across different public sectors.
The overarching goal is to reduce school dropout and by so doing prevent poverty and exclusion from work and society at a later stage.
The national cases and their local projects constitute the Nordic 0–24 collaboration. These cases and their sharing of experiences at the joint meetings have been our main data source. In the introduction to this re-port we gave a presentation of the involved cases. A broader presentation is given in the second interim report (Hansen et al. 2019).
Bottom-up
The Nordic 0–24 collaboration has been a bottom-up project in the sense that it is mainly municipalities and local projects that have participated in the exchange of experiences and generating of learning at the joint meetings. In Sweden, Norway and Denmark the participating municipal-ities have been actively involved in the Nordic collaboration, sharing their experiences at the joint meetings, but these countries have also had an overarching structure for municipalities participating in joint activity at a national level – in the form of a national network. These networks have specific plans for communication of learning and dissemination of experiences from their participation in the Nordic 0–24 collaboration.
In Finland, the municipalities have also participated actively with their experiences in the Nordic network, but in the Finnish case there has been no facilitation for generating experiences at a national level.
In Iceland, the case is based in the service centre at Breidholt, but as the project has evolved, there have been more activities at an overarching municipal level in Reykjavik. In the last year of the project, there has been one more participant from Iceland in the joint meetings. This participant represented a collaborative team in the rural areas of Iceland.
In the Faroe Islands, the specific project, the Springboard in Torshavn,
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the pedagogical psychological services at state level have been the par-ticipants.
In Greenland, no actors working in the actual follow-up of children and youth in the town of Tasiilaq have participated in the joint network. The case has differed from the others by being mainly represented by the na-tional contact person from the ministry, and at some joint meetings one person from the municipality administration also attended.
The role of the national contact persons has differed. They have all been placed at a national level, mainly in the respective ministry/direc-torate of education, but in Sweden and Norway, the national contact per-sons were from the national association of municipalities. Some of the national contact persons have been actively engaged with local actors in the national case as responsible for a network, while other national con-tact persons must be said to have had a more distant relationship to the involved local partners and the ongoing activities in the cases.
The table below outlines the detailed names of the main actors in each project. The actors listed in bold are where the national case is formally anchored. The participants in the active Nordic collaboration in the joint networks have mainly been the local participants.
Table 2.2. Anchorage of the national cases of cross-sectoral collaboration. Bold text is where the main responsibility of carrying out the case is placed.
Country and case National Gov dept National Agency Local authorities and
regions associations Municipalities / others
Education The municipality of
Torshavn, social services, childcare services, primary
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